Fact of the day

At the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Fritz Thiedemann - who had commanded a German cavalry unit during World War Two before being captured towards the end and interned in a Russian prison camp - created a unique piece of history. The farmer's son earned bronze medals in both individual show jumping and team dressage to become the only rider in Olympic history to win medals in two equestrian disciplines at the same Games. He went on to gold medals in team jumping at the 1956 Olympics, when the equestrian events were held in Stockholm, and Rome 1960. The Thiedemann rein is named after him.

FIFPro backs FIFA vice-president's pro-hijab campaign

Friday, 24 February 2012

By Andrew Warshaw

February 24 - The international players' union FIFPro is backing the campaign by FIFA vice-president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan to change the law and allow Muslim women to wear the hijab during matches.

The Islamic headscarf has been banned since 2007 but the issue comes before the game's lawmaking body, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), at its annual meeting on March 3.

The dispute was highlighted when Iran's women's team were forced to forfeit London 2012 Olympic qualifying matches last year.

FIFPro spokeswoman Frederique Winia said: "The current ban on wearing headscarves for religious reasons is discrimination."

Prince Ali will make a presentation to IFAB members showing the hijab held in place by Velcro rather than pins, thereby eliminating any safety dangers.

He is concerned that Muslim women could turn away from the sport if the law is not changed.

"It is very important that everybody has the chance to play the sport that they love and obviously the laws of the games have to be amended to allow that," he was recently quoted as saying.

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Samuel Bacharach will be one of the key speakers at The Academy in Lausanne in May where his theme will be leadership, and the skills necessary to realise results. But most importantly he will explain how it's not enough for leaders to just to come up with a great idea and that vision without organisation and execution is just hallucination. Mike Rowbottom reports.